Global Voices Online » 2006 » October

Stories

Air Collision in Brazil Triggers Strong Words of Blame

Jose Murilo Junior · 17:37

It's been a week since the collision of an Embraer Legacy 600 jet with GOL Airlines 737-800 Flight 1907 which plunged into the Amazon jungle Friday, killing all 154 people aboard in Brazil's worst air disaster. Some peculiar facts about the accident are turning the case into a battle of words about responsibilities in the Brazilian blogosphere, and the usual media sensationalism on these kinds of stories is fueling the heated debate.

As specialists affirm that the crash involved airplanes equipped with some of the most modern navigation tools available, and Brazilian air traffic system had just gone through a four-year, $121.5 million modernization which renders the capability of separating high-altitude traffic in 1,000-foot increments, the conjecture of a possible human failure of the Americans piloting the Brazilian-made aircraft naturally emerged. But what seems to have triggered the national animosity in this case was the odd presence of a New York Times reporter in the Legacy, and his determined attempt to defend the pilots through his blog, and also in the NYTimes.

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Russia, Georgia: Crisis Continues

Veronica Khokhlova · 16:57

As the confrontation between Georgia and Russia continues, so does the discussion of it in the Russian blogosphere. Below are some of the exchanges, translated from Russian.

LJ user plushev writes:

I don't even remember when nearly everyone was writing on one subject. Beslan, perhaps. Was there anything like this after Beslan? […]

What follows is a selection of Georgia-related quotes from plushev's LJ friends' journals: one blogger worries about president Putin's mental health, a few others crave Georgian food (Moscow authorities have shut down several Georgian restaurants), there are mentions of sculptor Zurab Tsereteli and writer Boris Akunin (Grigoriy Chkhartishvili), both of whom are Georgia-born, and both, as of today, are reportedly under investigation for tax evasion and fraud. LJ user cook (Sergei Parkhomenko) shares this “I'm Georgian” (“Ya gruzin”) solidarity badge:

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The State of the Argentinean Blogosphere: Blogs About Journalism and the Media

Jorge Gobbi · 10:17

Original version in spanish here

To find information about the media is not usually, at least not in Argentina, an easy task. For many particular reasons - economic, political, or pure convenience - there are very few places to find information about facts related to journalistic issues such as dismissals, mergers and other business events. Therefore, we shouldn't be surprised by the recent appearance of blogs specializing in publishing information about the media that is rarely known by the general public, aside from exhibiting an uncommon critical sense in mass journalism. These blogs also have another particularity: they're signed under a pseudonym, and the journalists who write them have a certain degree of anonimity. Why do they keep these blogs? Three bloggers explain their interest for the media, and the lack of debate about the state of journalism in Argentina. They are: Papipo, from “Del Medio“; Samurai Jack, from “Barra de Seriales“; and Periodista Oscuro, from “Solo un oscuro periodista“.

Acording to Papino, “blogs are tools that come in handy to journalists that are typically unemployed and can't talk or write about what they want, when they want and how they want to. There is no critic or selfcritic even when superficial of the media. In my case, I found in a blog the necessary channel to digest my opinions about the office, something that at my paid job and with my true identity I couldn't be able to do”. On the other side, Periodista Oscuro affirms one of the causes of his blog is that “there is no space within the media to criticize one's work. It's possible in a writing office to criticize the competition or journalists from other media, but it's implicitly forbidden to do it about the media company you're working at. It's an environment that should encourage debate and discussion but instead a climate of unquestionable authoritary hierarchy is established”.

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